Saturday, October 19, 2013

Google uses quantum computer for global warming

according to an article by Victoria Woollaston in the Daily Mail, Google hopes to use its D-Wave quantum computer to “solve global warming,” “develop sophisticated artificial life,” and “find aliens.” (No, I’m not making any of this up: just quoting stuff other people made up.) The article also repeats the debunked canard that the D-Wave machine is “3600 times faster,” and soberly explains that D-Wave’s 512 qubits compare favorably to the mere 32 or 64 bits found in home PCs (exercise for those of you who aren’t already rolling on the floor: think about that until you are). It contains not a shadow of a hint of skepticism anywhere, not one token sentence. I would say that, even in an extremely crowded field, Woollaston’s piece takes the cake as the single most irresponsible article about D-Wave I’ve seen. And I’d feel terrible for my many friends at Google, whose company comes out of this looking like a laughingstock.

This is more hype than usual, but none of the quantum computer admit that there has been very little progress making such computers and they will probably be impossible.